Failure Envelope

About the artist

J. Parker Valentine’s process-laden drawings and installations lay bare her meticulous way of working wide-ranging surfaces from MDF panels to scraps of fabric to that of the wall. Her diverse practice also includes film, photography, painting, sculptureRead more

About the exhibition

What is your process for creating drawings?

For this show, I decided to draw on muslin fabric, a fabric often used for sewing patterns. Drawing on its thin surface created impressions on the walls, which I chose to keep for the exhibition, although I edited and worked back into them. I started with large drawings on the large pieces of fabric, which I would then tear down and work into smaller compositions. I decided not to show the majority of these smaller compositions on muslin because they have representations on the wall and the prints.

How do the prints relate to the drawings?

The framed pieces are double-sided digital prints taken from in-process photographs of the drawings on fabric, but several also use found images. The paper is soaked in oil, making it transparent so the image printed on the back merges with the image on the front. The photos capture a moment in the process that does not exist anymore because the drawing has become something else—torn apart, erased, or drawn over. The wrinkles of the fabric become an integral part of the printed image.

In what ways are you using graphs?

Line graphs, like drawings, are a way to present information linearly. Several of the prints overlay a graph, taken from science or engineering, and a drawing, creating intersections between my drawn lines and the mechanically generated lines. Because most labels or text have been removed from the graphs, they become as abstract as the drawings, but their austerity creates a structure for the drawn lines. In the same way, the metal frames act like line graphs for the lariats. The lariat has its own integrity in its form. It will always keep its circular rigidity, so I wanted to connect it to the graphs in the least points possible.

What connections are you hoping to make between the pieces in this space?

I’m making literal connections between pieces through physical and visual convergences. This happens through both transparency and design. Some of these are changeable—you can walk around the sculptures and see the changing intersections of their lines against the lines on the walls. Furthermore, everything in the show is connected to everything else through its own history. Through my installation, I don’t want to point out directly what comes from what, so that there is no hierarchy.